Rules

Eligibility

• Classes 9-12, any school in India.
• Teams of 2 to 4 students.
• A school may enter as many teams as it likes.
• A student may be on only one team.

Competition packet

A detailed information packet is available to download. You do not need to register to read it.

What to submit

Your entry is 4 to 6 content slides, exported as PDF, maximum 10MB.

A title slide and a sources slide are both required. Neither counts toward the 4 to 6. So the shortest valid entry is 6 pages in total and the longest is 8.

Name your file TeamName - SchoolName.pdf

Your deck must cover two things. They are sections, not slides. Most teams spread them across four to six content slides, and the presentation template shows one way to do that.

The issue

A real problem you have seen, described narrowly enough to act on. Who is affected, how badly, and why it has not already been fixed.

Solution & AI impact

Four things belong here:

• Your solution, and what the AI actually does.
• What already exists in this area, and why yours is different.
• What it needs to work, and where it would fail.
• How it gets built, in the short term and the long term: who does the work, what it costs, and how you would know it worked.

Sources

Every entry must include a sources slide listing every statistic, quotation, image and claim that did not come from your own observation. Name the organisation or publication and the year. A bare link is not enough. Where a figure comes from a study of one particular group, say so rather than presenting it as a national number.

Images must be your own, clearly licensed, or diagrams you made. Photographs of identifiable people need their permission.

An entry with no sources slide cannot score above 5 out of 10 for presentation, and any figure without a source is treated as unsupported.

Use of AI

You may use AI tools for research, background reading, and analysis. The writing, structure, and design of the slides must be your team's own work. Every team confirms this on the submission form. We may ask any team to discuss their submission on a short video call; teams unable to do so may be disqualified.

Judging

Every entry is scored out of 40: the problem is worth 10, solution and AI impact 20, and presentation 10. Ties are broken on the solution score, then on the problem score. The full criteria, with the descriptors used for every band, are in the judging criteria document.

Timeline

Prize

A total prize pool of ₹50,000.

First place

₹25,000

Second place

₹15,000

Third place

₹10,000

A winning team receives a single payment, to be shared between its members. Where the winner is under 18, prize money is paid to a parent or guardian account.

Publication and rights

Teams grant permission to publish their submitted presentation, team name, and school name on this website and in related materials by ticking the consent box on the submission form. Individual student names will not be published without separate written consent from a parent or guardian. Teams keep ownership of their own work.

What disqualifies an entry

• Submitted after the deadline.
• Not a PDF.
• More than 6 content slides.
• Unable to discuss your own submission if asked.

How to submit

Registration and submission are two separate forms, both open from 1 September. Register your team first, then submit your presentation through the submission form before the deadline. Both forms require a Google account. Use the same team name on both forms, spelled exactly the same way. One submission per team. Your entry is final once submitted, so check your file before you send it.

Anything not covered here: birdspiracy.competition@gmail.com.

Before you start